Possibly the biggest story of many stories to come out in the first 100 days of the Trump presidency is his promise to immediately repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and replace it with a system that covers more people with better health care for less.
To some folks, Trump's promise was music to their ears. More covered with better care for less? Trump Care? But seriously, that sounds a lot like Medicare-for-all or single payer. Doesn't it?
Not to Rep. Paul Ryan however.
As speaker of a house gerrymandered heavily into his party's favor and a president who thinks Ryan is a "genius," Ryan knows this could be his last chance to usher in a national economic dystopia built from the fairy tales of Ayn Rand. Winning his tenth term to congress with full hometown support this time all the way down to his ward, Ryan believes he has a mandate. And, why not?
To cut it short, Ryan is the top dog, the mastermind, the kingpin and point man in power point representations for his own plan - not Trump's because Trump never had a plan to begin with. Trump's plan was to get as many suckers as possible to vote for him to win the election. Trump aced it with his promise to replace the ACA with a system that covers more people with better health care for less. That was it.
But, no one in Paul Ryan's hometown of Janesville Wisconsin would know any of that if the Janesville Gazette had their way.
Here's what I mean. If there was a national article examining the consequences of repealing the Affordable Care Act that did NOT mention Paul Ryan even once, the Gazette found it ...and made it front page headlines of their Monday edition. You might think that impossible, but the story they front lined on Monday is here.
Published by the AP and re-titled, "Worries of the newly uninsured" by Gazette staffers, the story is written with the presumption the ACA will indeed be replaced and mentions the "GOP" twice and "republican" six times as the owners of the plan while completely avoiding any connection to Paul Ryan.
On Tuesday, the hard copy Gazette headlined another article relating to the consequences expected from the repeal and replace fiasco, but sub-titled it as a republican proposal. Ryan's name was at least mentioned in the article.
The Gazette's Web edition lacked both articles. Instead, they ran with this.
That's not a photoshopped screenshot. It's been cropped, but it's real. The link to their top story on Paul Ryan is here.
But wow.
That is the news many residents in Ryan's hometown of Janesville see at a glance during what is shaping up to be a disasterous moment in U.S. history with the pride of Janesville not only the lead salesman, but is encouraged by CBO reports that his plan will economically force 24 million Americans off of health care rolls and skyrocket health care premiums.
Instead, Ryan is being presented as just one of the guys.
Again. Great work Gazette! You'll win more awards for this. You're the best!!
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